Buckeye Valley is that portion of Buffalo County lying northwest of Gibbon at the foot of the hills that stretch off toward Ravenna. Settlers came to the valley as early as 1873, and one of the first, Col. W. T. Beatty, a native of Ohio, the Buckeye state, gave the valley its name.

       As more settlers moved into the valley, a school district was organized. (See "Recollections of Buckeye Valley School," Buffalo Tales, Vol. 5, No. 5). A schoolhouse was built in 1880 in which Methodist church services and Sabbath School classes were also held until a church could be constructed. In 1884 a United Brethren congregation also organized in Buckeye Valley and erected a church building.

         A post office was established on July 31, 1884, and the little hamlet was given the name Butler in honor of General Benjamin Butler, then a candidate for President of the United States on the Greenback ticket. The first postmaster was B. S. Gitchel, followed by George Lunger, T. B. Williams and A. T. Davis. At first mail was brought out once a week from Gibbon. Later it was delivered twice a week. The post office was discontinued on January 3, 1905 with the advent of Rural Free Delivery. There was also a grocery store and a blacksmith shop in Butler, but it was the organization and activities of the Buckeye Valley Grange that made this settlement well known in the county.

         S. C. Bassett states in History of Buffalo County, Vol. 1, that granges were first organized in Buffalo County about 1875. One of the early granges mentioned is the one at Butler:

.... One of the most flourishing granges was located in Buckeye Valley (later called Butler), in Valley Township.  As recalled, T. B. Williams was "master" of this Grange, and N. Morris one of its very active members. This Grange continued to hold regular meetings for many years after all other granges in the county had surrendered their charters.

        There were 31 charter members, which in that early day must have included nearly all of the neighboring farmers and their wives. Meetings were held in the schoolhouse, but because this grange developed into the center for social life of the community, its members soon felt the need for a building of their own. Money was scarce so they decided to have a fair in 1896 to raise funds for the material for a building. The printing of the fair catalog was put into the hands of Editor Reed of the Shelton Clipper. One provision for entry was that everything had to be grown or produced in Buffalo County. Prizes were given and competition was lively. The fair was described in the October 5, 1896 issue of the Kearney Daily Hub:

        The Butler Grange Agricultural Fair held last week in Buckeye was a success. It was a good old-fashioned affair where people congregated to visit and look over and discuss various exhibits.
        The Society had erected two large buildings for holding the exhibits and had a large circus tent with seats of lumber where the people could rest and chat and take dinner. The show of corn was very large and of most excellent quality. There were fine examples of wheat and oats, buckwheat, millet, peas, beans, sorghum (both cane and syrup), grasses and clover, corn on the stalk and grain in the sheaf, kaffir and Jerusalem corn, broom corn and a large display of handsome homemade brooms, potatoes, pumpkins, squashes, melons. There was a nice showing of fruit: apple, crabs, peaches, plums, grapes; also nice specimens of honey in comb and extracted, equal if not superior to the best California product.
        In the poultry department were coops of white and barred Plymouth Rocks, Buff Cochin, Brown Leghorns and S. S. Hamburgs.

Monument of Grain
Butler Fair 1896 

          Ex-senator G. N. Smith showed a handsome monument made of corn, wheat, oats, cane and millet. It was mounted on four low iron wheels. From its peak floated the old flag. On the base at the rear of the pyramid or tower was a design made of 16 ears of white corn and one of yellow. It was supposed that Mr. Smith aimed to represent that he considered one ear of yellow corn equal to 16 white ones for any purpose whatever.
        On Wednesday p.m., Professor Murch of Kearney gave a very interesting talk on "Tree Planters." The crowd was entertained and amused by foot races, sack races, and music.

        Within a very few years interest in the Grange movement waned and in 1900 the hall was sold to John Hopper who moved it south of the Methodist Church and ran a grocery store in it for several years. He sold it to W. A. Long, who gave it to his daughter, Mrs. Weaver Lunger.  According to Historian S. C. Bassett, the Grange movement was revived in Nebraska about 1912, and 21 granges were again organized in Buffalo County. Some fifteen years after their first hall was sold, the Butler Grange bought the church building of the disbanded United Brethren Church for use as a grange hall.

         One of the early stores in Butler was T. B. Williams & Co., "dealer of dry goods, groceries, flour, shoes and notions." On January 23, 1894, Williams and J. B. Randall entered into a partnership to operate the store "at or near the residence of T. B. Williams." Randall agreed to furnish the sum of $400.00, the amount which he had invested in the stock of merchandise, and Williams was "to furnish a suitable building,..to spend his time in managing and conducting the business; to furnish man and team to do the necessary hauling to and from railroad and such other work as the business may require....No goods shall be sold unless cash or produce is received therefore at time of said sale. It is mutually agreed that the profits of the sale of General Merchandise shall be equally divided between the parties." The lengthy handwritten document, signed and witnessed, is now in the possession of Reva Headley, a granddaughter of Randall.

        My personal knowledge of Buckeye Valley and Butler dates to 1916. At that time the little hamlet consisted of "the store", then operated by John Bauer, the blacksmith shop of my grandfather, Henry Vohland, and three dwellings - the "big" two-story house occupied by John and Ella Bauer, a very small house north of the store where the Robert Vohland family lived, and then a short distance away, a bigger one-story house where Henry and Eliza Vohland dwelt.

         I remember that Butler had one thing that all towns, large or small, still have - dandelions! My grandfather would give me a nickel for a little wagonload of the blossoms. These nickels were immediately exchanged for licorice plugs at the store.

       I started school at District 97 in the fall of 1916. This school was known as Lower Buckeye since its new building had been constructed in 1886. The teacher was Miss Minnie Bressler. There were nine of us who embarked upon our educational careers that year at Butler. As I remember, they were Isla Rizer, Merle Long, Lola DeBrie, Eva McCann, Raye (or Faye) Long, Ernie Bressler, Alvin Rizer, Roy Sneller and myself. In 1917 my family left Butler, returning only occasionally to visit relatives.

       In the summer of 1968 we took our son and his wife to visit Buckeye Valley. To our children it was only a place the "old folks" talked about. When we reached where Butler had once been a flourishing little village, there was only a field of agriculture. So has passed the era of the small rural settlements.

      Kearney Daily Hub, October 5, 1896; Bassett's History of Buffalo County, 1916; Where the Buffalo Roamed, 1967; Buffalo Tales, Vol. 3, No. 10; Vol. 5, No. 5; Perkey's Names and Places; Personal interview with Reva Headley.

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